An eventful week of pictures!

Guest Speaker Mr. Bea presents: 3rd and 4th Grade MBA Business School!

                 

Irving Firemen from Engine 7 took the time to visit our 3rd graders for Fire Prevention Awareness Month

                               

Safety First!

                                                                     

Kid Gloves

                                                                   

Firemen in the classroom

                             

Seeing a firetruck up close and personal

                                               

a 3rd, 4th, and 5th grader took a few minutes to review Math facts together

                                 

Mr. Bea and a 3rd grader discuss business solutions

                                             

Mrs. Pulido with her 3rd graders

                                                 

A brother and sister work together to review math facts

                                         Up next: Photos from the Talent Show!

Peek at the Week News

Dear 3rd Grade Parents,

Please take a look at this week's highlights:

Vocabulary and Spelling: Finish all of the Vocabulary Workshop pages in Unit 10, which is due on Wednesday. Both the Vocabulary Quiz and Spelling Test are scheduled for Thursday due to the short week.

Reading: We are listening to Sideways Stories from Wayside School by Louis Sachar and doing several reader response activities in class. Ask your child to describe his/her favorite character in the book, and have him/her describe in detail why he likes that character.

Math: This week's focus is reciting our multiplication math facts for daily grades. So far we have individually recited our 2's and 3's. Tomorrow we will recite our 4's.

Religion: The month of October is dedicated to the Most Holy Rosary in honor of the liturgical Feast of Our Lady of the Rosary. We spent the last class period of the day yesterday in church together to pray the rosary with the entire school. We will begin our saints unit in preparation for All Saints' Day in November.

Notes/Reminder:
1. Local firefighters from Irving Engine 7 visited our class for Fire Prevention Safety Awareness month. We spent time learning about fire safety and learned about all the parts of a fire engine. Pictures to follow.
2. No school this Friday! Diocesan Ministry Day.
3. Guest speaker Mr. Vincente Bea spoke to our 3rd and 4th graders about the nuts and bolts of business and making smart choices about money. Key points include:

- To show how addition and substraction are used in real life.
- Introduce some key financial concepts (Income Statement, Material Margin, 
Variable Margin, Profit, ...), applied to a simple example and show how business 
decisions are made based on that data.
- Get the kids to participate and propose simple solutions to the problems of 
the business.
- Show the importance of balancing income and expenses, and of making sound 
financial decisions based on data, not on guesses.

3rd Grade Peek at the Week News October 17, 2011

Dear 3rd Grade Parents,

Please take a look at this week's highlights:

Vocabulary/Spelling: Unit 9 due Wednesday. Vocabulary Quiz on Thursday. Spelling Test on Friday. The online component for our textbook we use in class have been helpful for the kids when learning and retaining information. The word maps and games online help our students become engaged in learning, so we will continue this routine on the touchscreen Smartboard until we master our vocabulary building skills. 

English: We will continue our writing workshop lesson on personal narrative. Our 3rd graders will begin to develop more mature idea development, organization skills, and voice. We will also try to revise our work to produce a more polished final product. Tonight, we will work on our story organizer for homework.

Math: Using our ALEKS online Math program,  we will review and increase mastery rounding whole numbers to the nearest ten or hundred to approximate reasonable results in estimating sums and differences this week. We will begin our new chapter in our textbook to introduce multiplication concepts and facts. In our ALEKS Quick Tables online program, we will practice recalling Math facts.

Reading: We continue with our listening comprehension practice using our new novel unit Sideways Stories from Wayside School written by Newberry Medal winner author Louis Sachar. This time, we will use reader response activities, compositions, and other projects to assess listening comprehension skills.

Religion: In preparation for Priesthood Sunday (October 30th, 2011), students will learn the role of a priest in a community. 3rd graders will discover that every priest is called to serve God's people in word and deed. The students will begin to understand that priests are called to be SERVANT LEADERS who serve the people of God. Some of our activities will include: reading the Gospel and applying them to character building themes such as proper attitudes toward our religious practices, encouragement, keeping God's covenant, and appreciating our very own servant leader, Father Jerry. In this lesson, we will begin to develop a deeper awareness of his role as our servant leader at Holy Family.


Notes/Reminder:
1. Priesthood Sunday is October 30th, 2011: Priesthood Sunday, the last Sunday of October, is a special day set aside to honor the priesthood in the United States. It is a day to reflect upon and affirm the role of the priesthood in the life of the Church as a central one. We will do a few classroom activities to reflect upon the services of our parish priest, Father Jerry and his role to our community. In addition to our classroom activities, we will participate in a schoolwide project in honor of Father Jerry for Priesthood Sunday. Our class will collect coins beginning this week for a gift to present to our priest. Please allow your child to bring his/her spare change for this project.
2. 1st Quarter ends on October 25th. Report cards coming soon.
3. Spaghetti Dinner and Talent Show this Friday evening! Please join us in the Parish Hall for this exciting event. Our 3rd graders will perform live with a short skit, song ("Celebration"), and dance. The kids are very excited to share how they celebrate in the classroom. They may dress in simple costume with a 70's/disco theme. If you need help or have questions regarding this matter, please contact Shelly Griffin or Virginia Gonzalez.

3rd Graders Doing Their Best During Achievement Testing Week

Our young students are working hard to show us what they know in various content areas this week, and we are all very proud of their efforts!

Peek at the Week News, October 10, 2011

Dear 3rd Grade Parents,

Please take a look at this week's highlights:

NO HOMEWORK THIS WEEK DUE TO ACHIEVEMENT TESTING! 

We will use our morning time to test each day, with frequent breaks in between. Our tentative testing schedule is below:

Tuesday

Vocabulary 

Reading Comprehension Part 1

Reading Comprehension Part 2

Spelling

Capitalization

Punctuation

Usage and Expression

Wednesday

Math Concepts and Estimation

Math Problem Solving and Data Interpretation

Math Computation

Social Studies

Science

Thursday

Maps and Diagrams

Reference Materials

Word Analysis

Listening

Friday CogAT Cognitive Abilities Test

Session 1: Verbal Battery

Session 2: Quantitative Battery

Session 3: Nonverbal Battery

We will have no morning specials, but we will have our regular daily schedule in the afternoons. 

Some helpful tips to encourage your child:

1. Explain and reassure to him/her that these tests are not for a grade in the report card, but encourage your child to do his/her best.

2. Encourage your child to listen carefully to all test-taking directions given by the teacher.

3. See that your child gets his/her regular amount of sleep before the tests and is well-rested.

4. Make sure your child eats his/her usual breakfast on each day of testing week. Hunger can detract from a good test performance.

In class, we do our very best to be at ease and relaxed while taking our tests. In addition to our school-wide morning prayer, we will say a short prayer of petition daily before taking our test. 

Notes/Reminder:

We will begin practicing our classroom Talent Show performance this week. The performance will include a skit, song, and dance incorporating our classroom theme. More details to come. 

Have a blessed week!

~Mrs. Pia Villanueva-Pulido

Listening, Learning, and Having Fun!

Our first guest speaker, Mr. Michael Medina, discussed the importance of time management skills to become better students. We also had fun posing for pictures!

3rd Grade Peek at the Week News October 3rd, 2011

Dear Parents,
Please take a look at this week's highlights:

Vocabulary/Spelling: Vocabulary 8 Unit pages are due tomorrow. Vocabulary Quiz on Thursday and Spelling Test on Friday. Last week's Vocabulary Quiz scores were outstanding, and the class average was a 96%! The online component for our textbook we used in class have been very helpful for the kids when learning and retaining information. We will continue this routine on the Smartboard until we master this skill.

Reading: Next week is Achievement Testing week. Like many Catholic schools in the Diocese, Holy Family of Nazareth uses the Iowa Test of Basic Skills (ITBS) for standardized test scores. We employ the series of tests from 1st through 8th grade to gain information about classes and students for instructional planning, to supplement teacher observations regarding abilities, and to establish a basis of student performance evaluation. This week, we are using the ITBS practice materials during our Reading class to help us feel more comfortable using these test formats. A list of the content areas for testing is below:
Vocabulary
Reading Comprehension
Spelling
Capitalization
Punctuation
Usage and Expression
Math Concepts and Estimation
Math Problem Solving and Data Interpretation
Math Computation
Social Studies
Science
Maps and Diagrams
Reference Materials

English: We will begin to apply our grammar skills into our writing workshop sessions this week and begin to analyze parts of a personal narrative essay. We will attempt to complete our very first essays using personal narrative topics. A guide for this lesson is in the textbook, and we will use our daily class work time to begin understanding the written word.

Math: We continue to use our school-wide (grades 3 and up) ALEKS Math program to help guide us into covering various Math topics that match the standards-based curriculum in 3rd grade. Your child should have shown you several copies of day-to-day specific instructions I have sent home in the past two weeks. We are covering a review on Place Value (with expanded numbers), Money, Addition and Subtraction (with regrouping and borrowing). In class, we do a mixed review of our Subtraction chapter (aligned with our textbook schedule) on subtraction across zero, including word problems. In computer lab, we will continue to practice our Math facts in addition and subtraction using keyboard, and they are timed in the ALEKS program. This week, students will have homework using the ALEKS program. In class, the students will experience a mixture of Math worksheets in both paper-pencil and digital formats.

Religion: We began Chapter 6 in our textbook, "The Death and Resurrection of Jesus." So far, we have discussed the meaning of hope and different symbols we use for hope. We examined our faith by discussing that Jesus died on the cross to save us from our sins, and God raised Jesus from the dead. The cross is a symbol of hope because Jesus won for us God's promise of life after death. The rainbow is another symbol of hope. After the rain, the rainbow shows God's promise of life. We designed our own rainbows as our own personal reminder of God's promise of everlasting life.

Notes/Reminder:
1. Feast of St. Francis celebration today! We will have a short prayer service with the blessing of the pets at 2:30 in church. The students will bring pictures of their pets and celebrate St. Francis' love of animals.
2. Spirit Day on Thursday. Dress code: Plain blue jeans, sneakers, and a Spirit shirt.
3. Early dismissal Friday (noon).
4. No School Monday.
5. Achievement Testing next week!